Chart of the Week: The World's Infrastructure Plans

Demand for access to basic needs, an emerging middle class and a never-ending use of global resources—these are the primary drivers of major infrastructure projects over the next several years, says GE.
In its Investor Meeting last week, the firm highlighted a few macro slides on world growth. One slide pins major global infrastructure plans totaling $4 trillion over the next 2 to 20 years.

Emerging markets across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America are overwhelmingly the ones pulling out their checkbooks. A number of projects are expected in Brazil, including the PAC 2 investment program totaling $872 billion, Petrobras Oil & Gas project of $225 billion, and the infrastructure spending for the World Cup and Olympics expected to cost $668 billion. Brazil’s PAC 2 will mostly be spent on energy and the remainder on subsidized housing, urbanization, sanitation and electricity distribution, says Financial Times.
India and Russia also have tremendous infrastructure plans, as each country is expected to be a half of a trillion dollars. China’s 12th Five-Year Plan is expected to spend $840 billion on the power industry and another $180 billion on health care.
In GE’s presentation, the president & CEO of Global Growth & Operations, John Rice, says many of these countries’ governments face extraordinary pressure “to increase standards of living and reduce the wealth disparity.” Of the world’s population of 7 billion, GE says 1.5 billion have no access to basic needs, such as health care, electricity and water. In addition, in the next 20 years, another 3 billion people will be added to the middle class, according to GE. That equates to 150 million people each year who will have the means and “the same kind of demands in terms of basic living conditions and infrastructure” available in the U.S., says Rice.
This trend is what I refer to as the American Dream Trade. When the boomers were babies, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act. The “great road program” was said to be the most intense road construction period in U.S. history, altering where Americans chose to live, vacation and work. A 62-day trip in 1919 from Washington D.C. to San Francisco was reduced to two days due to the U.S. interstate system. This helped sustain a more than tenfold increase in the U.S. GDP, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
A pursuit of the American Dream from the U.S.’s emerging middle class led to the success of many well-known U.S. companies. Restaurants including McDonald’s and Dairy Queen and automobile manufacturers Ford and GM prospered following this infrastructure spend.
The infrastructure plans taking place across emerging markets emulate a 1950s America. As these governments help their residents pursue the American Dream of better homes, health care and quality of life, I believe the companies with a strong footprint in these growing markets stand to benefit.
See GE’s presentation slideshow here.
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